En s’appuyant sur l’historiographie russe la plus récente, cet article retrace le parcours de l’académicien soviétique David Riazanov, de son premier engagement aux côtés des populistes russes à son exécution lors des grandes purges. L’article se concentre principalement sur la contribution essentielle de Riazanov à la fondation de la « marxologie » scientifique à travers la création de l’Institut MarxEngels de Moscou en 1921. En présentant l’éditeur de la première MEGA tant comme un érudit marxiste respecté que comme un (...) militant inflexible opposé à l’emprise de Staline sur le parti, l’article traite également des enjeux inhérents à toute recherche marxologique, comme la difficile articulation entre approche scientifique et impératif politique. (shrink)

First published in French, Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) was composed during his years in Brussels, when he was developing his economic views and, through confrontations with the chief leaders of the working-class movement, establishing his intellectual standing. In this classic work, which laid the foundation of ideas later developed in Capital, Marx polemicized against then premier French socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon wanted to unite the best features of such contraries as competition and monopoly. He hoped to (...) save the good features of economic institutions while eliminating the bad. Marx, however, declared that no equilibrium was possible between the antagonisms in any given economic system. Social structures were transient historical forms determined by the productive forces: "The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the stream mill, society with the industrial capitalist.". (shrink)

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher and revolutionary socialist, who developed the socio-political theory of Marxism. Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) was a German industrialist, social scientist, political theorist and father of communist theory, alongside Karl Marx. Compiled by Institute of Marxism-Leninism, this Soviet-era, English language edition includes "the most important works of Marx and Engels.".

Russian Marxism is the outcome of two distinct traditions, namely, nineteenth-century Russian radicalism and Western European Marxism. In this paper I shall briefly trace its descent from these traditions and try to distinguish those features of it which differentiate it both from the older radicalism and from the Marxism of Marx and Engels. I shall deal in turn with three main topics, the nineteenth-century radical tradition, early Russian Marxism, and finally, Leninism.

Russian Marxism is the outcome of two distinct traditions, namely, nineteenth-century Russian radicalism and Western European Marxism. In this paper I shall briefly trace its descent from these traditions and try to distinguish those features of it which differentiate it both from the older radicalism and from the Marxism of Marx and Engels. I shall deal in turn with three main topics, the nineteenth-century radical tradition, early Russian Marxism, and finally, Leninism.

Friedrich Engels: Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft. (Anti-Dühring) Lesefreundlicher Großdruck in 16-pt-Schrift Großformat, 210 x 297 mm Berliner Ausgabe, 2019 Durchgesehener Neusatz mit einer Biographie des Autors bearbeitet und eingerichtet von Theodor Borken Erstdruck in: Vorwärts (Leipzig), 3.1.1877 - 7.7.1878. Erste Buchausgabe, Leipzig 1878. Der Text folgt der letzten von Engels durchgesehenen und vermehrten Ausgabe, Stuttgart (J.H.W. Dietz) 1894. Textgrundlage ist die Ausgabe: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: Werke. Herausgegeben vom Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK (...) der SED, 43 Bände, Band 20, Berlin: Dietz-Verlag, 1962. Umschlaggestaltung von Thomas Schultz-Overhage. Gesetzt aus der Minion Pro, 16 pt. Henricus Edition Deutsche Klassik UG (haftungsbeschränkt). (shrink)

Friedrich Engels: Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der klassischen deutschen Philosophie Edition Holzinger. Taschenbuch Berliner Ausgabe, 2013 Vollständiger, durchgesehener Neusatz mit einer Biographie des Autors bearbeitet und eingerichtet von Michael Holzinger Textgrundlage ist die Ausgabe: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: Werke. Herausgegeben vom Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED, 43 Bände, Band 21, Berlin: Dietz-Verlag, 1962. Herausgeber der Reihe: Michael Holzinger Reihengestaltung: Viktor Harvion Umschlaggestaltung unter Verwendung des Bildes: Friedrich Engels, Fotographie von 1888 von William (...) Elliott Debenham (1839-1924) Gesetzt aus Minion Pro, 10 pt. (shrink)

FROM THE INSTITUTE OF MARXISM-LENINISM The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Critique. Against Bruno Bauer and C0. is the first joint work of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. At the end of August 1844 Marx and Engels met in Paris ...

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was born in Trèves in the Rhineland. He studied law in Bonn, philosophy and history in Berlin, and received a doctorate from the University of Jena for a thesis on Epicurus (341–270 BC). (Epicurus' philosophy was a reaction against the ‘other-worldliness’ of Plato's theory of Forms. Whereas for Plato knowledge was of intelligible Forms, and the criterion of the truth of a hypothesis about the definition of a Form was that it should survive a Socratic testing (...) by question and answer, for Epicurus the criterion of truth was sensation, and employment of this criterion favoured the theory with which Plato explicitly contrasted the theory of Forms (Sophist 246a–d), namely, the materialism of the atomists, Leucippus and Democritus.) Marx was editor of the Rheinische Zeitung of Cologne, 1842–1843. The paper was suppressed and he moved to Paris, becoming co-editor of the Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher, the one and only issue of which contained two articles by Marx and two by his friend, Friedrich Engels (1829–1895). Together they wrote The German Ideology (1846) and their most influential work, The Communist Manifesto (1848). Marx had been expelled from France in 1845, and went to Brussels, from where he was expelled during the 1848 revolutions. He went to Cologne to start, with Engels and others, a paper with a revolutionary editorial policy, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Expelled once again, Marx finally settled in London, working in the British Museum on his great historical analysis of capitalism, Das Kapital. The first volume was published in 1867, the remaining two volumes, completed by Engels after Marx's death, in 1885 and 1895. (shrink)

The texts before us are relatively early works. They predate the famous Manifesto of the Communist Party of 1848. Their importance lies in this: that here historical materialism is outlined and defended for the first time. This new philosophy is elaborated in the course of Marx and Engels' effort to settle accounts with previous German philosophy—and, perhaps, with philosophy as such. The new outlook is developed, therefore, in the context of polemic against Hegel and Feuerbach, precisely the thinkers (...) that they most admired earlier in fact. (shrink)

The texts before us are relatively early works. They predate the famous Manifesto of the Communist Party of 1848. Their importance lies in this: that here historical materialism is outlined and defended for the first time. This new philosophy is elaborated in the course of Marx and Engels' effort to settle accounts with previous German philosophy—and, perhaps, with philosophy as such. The new outlook is developed, therefore, in the context of polemic against Hegel and Feuerbach, precisely the thinkers (...) that they most admired earlier in fact. (shrink)

In Capital and Ideology, Thomas Piketty poses the intriguing thesis that ideology, or ideas about how society should be governed, is a powerful determinant for how society will be governed-as long as we take advantage of historical switch points. In this review essay I challenge this thesis by pointing out that many powerful ideas have run aground because of countervailing institutional arrangements. Oftentimes, they are leftovers from earlier times that precede the change and are now strategically employed for reconstituting private (...) wealth. Clearly, ideology and institutions are deeply intertwined. I credit Piketty for putting ideology on the map of institutionalists in history, political sciences, sociology, and law. I therefore call for more research on the interaction of ideas and institutions. (shrink)

The first volume of the collected works of Karl Marx, which is being issued by the Marx-Engels Institute of Moscow, opens with a dissertation entitled ‘Über die Differenz der demokritischen und epikureischen Naturphilosophie’, which he presented for his doctorate at the University of Jena in 1841. It is interesting to find one who was afterwards to win fame in very different fields starting his career with an enthusiastic tract on Greekphilosophy, which he evidently intended to make his (...) work for years to come; for not only does he tell us in his introduction that this thesis is a prelude to a comprehensive study of Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Scepticism, ‘the philosophical basis of Roman life and character’, but appended to the dissertation are some seventy pages of preliminary notes for the larger work, which range over such varied subjects as ‘The Immanent Dialectic of the Epicurean Philosophy’, ‘The Idea of the “Wise Man” in Greek Philosophy,’, and ‘Parallels between the Epicureans, and the Pietists and Supernaturalists.’. (shrink)

The Marxian visions of the post-capitalist future evolved with significant changes over three decades. From the outset Marx and Engels divided the future into stages, economically and philosophically, a final communist or socialist stage, and a transitional stage or stages preceding it. The final stage remained largely constant throughout, the actualization of the ideal of Feuerbach's anthropological philosophy, supplemented by Fourier's ideas for the abolition of the division of labor and its transformation into pleasurable activity. The original institutional (...) conception was pastoral, adopted from Owen's communal plans and materialistic determinism, with socialized means of production and comprehensive communal control of social and economic life. They substituted for Owen's equal labor-time exchange principle Cabet's principle of from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, and estimated the duration of the transition at one to two years. Interpreting history according to Hegel's dialectic they conceived this future as the inevitable result of a revolution dialectically effecting the complete rehumanization of a totally dehumanized proletariat, whose consciousness accomplishes the revolution and recovers its theretofore alienated nature. ;With the subsequent formulation of the theory of historical materialism and its conception of all history as class conflict their published descriptions of the final stage became brief and vague and it was relegated to an increasingly remote future, based on varying material and social requirements which would transform human nature sometime during these increasingly lengthy transitional stages. To preserve the material accomplishments of capitalism they substituted state centralization for Owen's communalism, but began to misrepresent this for tactical political reasons, defining the state and classes solely in terms of property, state expropriation thereby abolishing the state. Retaining Cabet's principle for the final stage, they formulated a succession of contradictory principles of production and distribution within a varying number of transitional stages. These principles ranged from the equal exchange of labor time, through unequal distribution for equal labor time based on results, and finally to equal distribution for unequal labor time and results. The most egalitarian plans were the most widely publicized, the least egalitarian restricted in circulation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article draws attention to a neglected aside in the debate over whether Marx fathered an illegitimate child. In 1898, Louise Freyberger wrote a controversial letter in which she claimed Engels had confessed on his deathbed that Frederick Demuth was Marx’s son. The letter, however, only came to light in 1962 when Werner Blumenberg first discussed it in his biography of Marx. Blumenberg’s revelation provoked an on-going debate over the plausibility of Freyberger’s allegations. Several scholars (...) went so far as to dismiss the letter as a forgery, noting that it only existed in the form of a typed copy that Blumenberg had discovered in the archives of the International Institute of Social History (IISH). In 1963, Jacob-Peter Mayer published a review of Blumenberg’s biography in which he stated he had known of the letter in the 1930s, but few if any scholars took note of Mayer’s claim. In 2019, a copy of the letter in Mayer’s own hand was found among his papers. This article argues that Mayer copied his version, not from the IISH typescript, but from the original letter, which he had come across while working in the archives of the German Social Democratic Party in the 1930s. (shrink)

The idea of “two discoveries” in Marx is essentially known through the presentations of Engels and Stalin, which had lasting influences in the constitution of “Marxism”. They essentially insisted on a correlation of “theories” or “disciplines” hierarchically articulated . But it had another, earlier and more specific, formulation offered by Marx himself, when trying to emphasize the novelty of his theory in Capital, Volume One. Marx singled out, on the one side, the “double character of labour” (...) expressed in the value-form, on the other side the articulation of “surplus labour” and “surplus value”. In this essay, we attempt a thought experiment which considers the “two discoveries” claimed by Marx not as successive moments of a single demonstration, also not as falling apart in an “epistemological break”, but as terms of a “disjunctive synthesis”. It would subject the critique of capitalism to a permanent tension, with, on one side, the logic of universal commodification arising from the institution of the General Equivalent, and on the other, the comparative study of modes of exploitation and domination in different “class structures”. The resulting ambiguities in the formulation of the “communist hypothesis” in Marx are perhaps of no little import in today’s renewed interest for the Marxian critique. (shrink)

Sr. Garcia wants to bring readers the image of Marx they might draw from his 1844 economic-philosophical manuscripts which were not published until 1932, on the initiative of the Marx-Engels Institute of Moscow, under the title Zur Kritik der Nationaloeconomie mit einem Schlusskapitel über die Hegelsche Philosophie. He feels the tardy discovery of this work is as significant for the understanding of Marx as the belated discovery of the epistles of Saint John would have been to (...) an understanding of Jesus. Garcia sees his task to be that of "cleaning the coin" of Marxism in order for both of its true faces to be seen. Marx used the word "transubstantiation" to refer to the transformation of the substance of the history of philosophy by the socialist revolution. This is much more than reinterpretation. He likens the socialist transubstantiation of philosophy and Catholicism to the absorption of primitive explanations in science into modern theoretical physics. As the transformation of the son of man into the Son of God was the task of Christianity, the transformation of natural man into the creator and creature of society is the task of socialism. The author is thus trying to show that the atheism attributed to Marx is not inimical to the true values of the Christian myth, but absorbs and transforms them into Humanism, which is the "very theme of our time."—M.B.M. (shrink)

Der Band enthält 123 Dokumente von Marx und Engels aus dem Zeitraum von Oktober 1857 bis Dezember 1858. Dazu zählen 81 Korrespondenzen für die „New-York Tribune“ – eine der bedeutendsten US-amerikanischen Zeitungen – sowie 39 Arbeiten für das große Lexikon „New American Cyclopædia“ und drei Texte für andere Zeitungen. Sieben bisher unbekannte Texte werden hier erstmals ediert. Im Mittelpunkt der journalistischen Arbeiten steht die Kommentierung der ersten Weltwirtschaftskrise von 1857/58 und des Indischen Aufstands 1857-59, der die britische Herrschaft (...) erschütterte. Marx tritt hier als Krisenanalytiker und als Kolonialkritiker hervor. Hinzu kommen seine Artikel zum Opiumhandel, den er als internationalen Drogenhandel darstellt, zum Beginn der "Neuen Ära" in Preußen und die Kommentierung des Anschlags auf Napoleon III. Des Weiteren finden sich Berichte zu den Kämpfen im Kaukasus und zu den britischen Antiterrormaßnahmen in Irland. Der Band zeigt Marx und vor allem Engels außerdem als Autoren von Lexikonbeiträgen. Darunter finden sich umfangreiche Biografien, wie die zu Blücher und Bolivar, Militärartikel zu Artillerie und Kavallerie sowie zu großen Schlachten, wie der Schlacht bei Borodino und zum Untergang der spanischen Armada. (shrink)

This article examines Jacques Derrida’s work of self-reflection on his own teaching practice by using as a guiding thread the problematics of reproduction in the seminars of the 1970s. The first part of the article examines the sequence of seminars taught by Derrida at École normale supérieure from 1971 to 1977 to show how the concept of reproduction is deconstructed by Derrida across several seminars. Derrida systematically demonstrates, across several themes and fields (sociology and economy, biology and sexuality, art, technique, (...) ontology, and so on), that the critical recourse to the concept of reproduction (for instance, in its Marxist form) risks being complicit in the reproductive system it criticizes. The deconstructive motif of débordement is introduced to problematize this onto-logic of re-production. The second part of the article analyzes more specifically the unpublished seminar “GREPH, le concept de l’idéologie chez les idéologues français” (1974–75), in which Derrida examines the seminar function, his role as a teacher, and his own situation within the French educational system. In particular, Derrida offers a deconstructive critique of the reproductive effects of teaching, and of the institution of philosophy inasmuch as it functions as a reproductive machine. This work of deconstruction is done in the seminar notably through readings of Marx, Engels, and Althusser, with special attention to the concepts of ideology, reproduction, and sexual difference. (shrink)

With selections from Parts Two and Three, together with Marx's "Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy".